All About America: Photographs by Burk Uzzle

June 24, 2016 - September 11, 2016

Two people holding up mirror to soldiers

This exhibition of 42 works traces the distinguished career of photographer Burk Uzzle and his observation of American society, from the turbulent politics and countercultural revolution of the 1960s to the present. All About America represents five decades of photographs by this North Carolina native, from iconic photos of Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral, the Woodstock music festival, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations to his later study of the social landscape of America from coast to coast.

With a perceptive and often loving eye for the complexities of life in the U.S.—the strange things ordinary people do and the altered landscapes in which we live—Burk Uzzle combines the sharp observation of the outsider with the ironic understanding of the insider. The result is a unique testimony to the stresses, contradictions, and joys that have marked Americans’ modern lives.

Curated by Patricia Leighten, Professor of Art History & Visual Studies, Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Duke University.

All About America: Photographs by Burk Uzzle will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated, 80-page exhibition catalogue with an essay by the curator.

Read “Uzzle Buzz,” a series of blog posts, written by various authors, that respond to or comment on some aspect of All About America.

See a slideshow, with commentary by Burk Uzzle, in T, The New York Times Style Magazine.

Listen to an interview with Burk Uzzle by guest host Phoebe Judge on WUNC’s “The State of Things.”

This exhibition has been made possible in part through the generosity of the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust.

All About America: Photographs by Burk Uzzle is presented in coordination with two other area exhibitions exploring the photographer’s work: Burk Uzzle: Southern Landscapes (Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 28 May – 18 September 2016) and Burk Uzzle: American Chronicle (North Carolina Museum of Art, 16 April – 25 September 2016).

All images are gelatin silver prints from the collection of the Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, © Burk Uzzle, American, born 1938.

Image Credit: Mirror Image, Peace Demonstration, New Haven, 1970, 1970. Anonymous Gift, 2008.3.23.